WESTERN BOUNDARY. 113 



the terminus of the Platte Kiver, which is said to be navigable 

 600 miles farther west, so boundless is the extent of this coun- 

 try. Here is a railway being constructed for nearly 300 miles 

 west of the Mississippi, through a region the greater part of 

 which has yet been trodden only by the Indian and the gov- 

 ernment surveyor, and yet its terminus is but the starting point 

 for another 600 miles, through a country as extensive as Great 

 Britain, on the confines of which are the newly discovered gold 

 fields of Kansas and Nebraska. 



There is ground, however, for believing that, beyond a cer- 

 tain point westwards, the country will be found from climate 

 not so well adapted to the maintenance of population. The 

 change begins at the meridian of 95 west longitude. The 

 air then assumes an aridity not found anywhere to the east of 

 it, and at the 98th meridian it presents an abrupt contrast with 

 the country east. Mr. Blodgett, in his very able and interest- 

 ing work on the climate of North America, points out this fact, 

 with the explanation that the plains here have an elevation of 

 2000 feet on an average. This arid climate is not only unfa- 

 vorable to the culture of corn and grass, but is probably pro- 

 ductive of those enormous flights of grasshoppers which for two 

 successive seasons have seriously damaged the crops of Iowa 

 and Minnesota. The western side of both these States is within 

 the influence of this aridity of atmosphere, as is likewise the 

 British settlement on the Eed Eiver, where on several occasions 

 the crops have been utterly destroyed by grasshoppers. 



There is a population of 600,000 in Iowa. The foreigners 

 are chiefly Germans and Irish, the latter mostly railway la- 

 bourers. -Wages are now a dollar a-day. 



We again embarked on the Mississippi, passing Nauvoo, 

 the first Mormon settlement in America, now broken up some 

 years ago. After a farther voyage of 200 miles we reached 

 St. Louis, one of the great cities of America, with a population 



